Happy first Friday of February everyone! And apologies to any of you who might be reading from areas of the country that are buried under snow right now, but we've had a positively balmy week here in the DC area and I think it may be scrambling my brain. So, additional apologies for the fact that this week's roundup may actually be even more scatttershot than normal.

Anyway, click through for all the news that's fit to print (er... type?) from the world of British entertainment, including Upstairs Downstairs, Downton Abbey, Doctor Who, Call the Midwife, Absolutely Fabulous, The Only Way is Essex and a whole lot more.

Doctor Who is turning 50 next year, so it’s probably pretty safe to say that even the series’ most vociferous and dedicated fans might have a few gaps in their knowledge of the show and its history (Heck, I certainly do – rather large ones, actually - and I’m the biggest Whovian I know). In what is basically the coolest video to appear on the internet in ages, Youtube channel BabelColour has put together something that is both amazing and educational for fans both new and old.

This video takes 48 years of Who history – including the main series, all the spin-offs, the comedy special bits, trailers, really everything – and arranges everything in chronological order for a ten-minute romp through every episode and extra of the entire franchise. It’s fantastic (to steal the Ninth Doctor’s catchphrase), covering 784 episodes, 226 stories, and 11 Doctors - every adventure from William Hartnell’s The Unearthly Child to Matt Smith’s 2011 Christmas special The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe. It will make you want to watch every episode available, while simultaneously cursing the fact that there are 106 episodes that are still missing from the BBC archives. So, yes, you should click through and watch it right now. Really.

If you follow our Friday News Roundup posts at all, then you've probably seen the persistent rumors that mention virtually everyone in the entertainment industry as possibly taking part in the upcoming third series of mega-popular period drama Downton Abbey, from Judi Dench to Joan Collins to Harrison Ford. Well, finally some confirmed casting news has emerged about Downton Series 3, which is slated to go into production next month.

You may have heard a bit about this already, but yes, it’s true and official: Oscar-winner Shirley MacLaine has signed up to enter a cage match with Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess join the Downton cast in the new season. MacLaine, who has starred in many great films such as Terms of Endearment, Postcards from the Edge, Guarding Tess, The Apartment and (my personal fave) Steel Magnolias, will play Martha Levinson, the mother of Lady Grantham.

"Shirley MacLaine is a great actress and she's as American as the day is long," says MASTERPIECE executive producer Rebecca Eaton. "I can't wait to see her go toe-to-toe with Maggie Smith's Lady Violet."

It’s been a personal wish of mine for a while to learn more about the Crawley family background and how Lord and Lady Grantham’s marriage came about, so the introduction of American family for Cora is extra exciting, if you ask me.

Plus, I can only imagine the vitriolic sniping that’s sure to ensure when Martha and Violet face off. Get the popcorn ready.

Crime drama Whitechapel returned to ITV for a third series in the UK last night, though this time it’s put together a bit differently than previous outings. Unlike the first two seasons, which were both based on a single event/case played out over three episodes, the new season is being split into three two-part stories, for a total of six episodes. Stars Rupert Perry-Jones, Phil Davis and Steve Pemberton are all back as DI Joseph Chandler, DS Ray Miles, and historian (of a sort) Edward Buchan.

Click through for a look at the ITV trailer for Series 3 for yourselves. No word on when we might see this series of Whitechapel in the States just yet. But, since BBC America aired the first two seasons so recently, there’s every reason to hope we won’t have to wait too long to see the third. Keep your fingers crossed!

The second series of Downton Abbey continues, as we rolled through the fourth episode this week. While I didn’t completely love this episode quite as much as last week’s, it was still full of loads of drama and a great many twists and turns that will doubtless have long-lasting repercussions for everyone at Downton, both upstairs and down. And I’m just guessing that it probably made you cry.

Click through for a look at some of the big moments from this episode, a few nitpicks and some speculation about the back half of the season. Feel free to chime in with any thoughts, observations, and things I might have left out in the comments!

A brand new episode of Downton Abbey airs tonight at 9pm on Masterpiece Classic! Is everyone suitably excited? Given how fantastic last Sunday’s episode was, I am expecting great things as several storylines kick into high gear.

The great Doc Martin viewing marathon continues this week here at Telly Visions as we dig right into Series 2. (I’m so proud of this so far – I feel like I’ve really committed to it now as we get into the second season. Hurrah.) I feel like the show is now basically established – for a lack of a better term – we know who the characters are and what they like and how they interact with one another. And now, with all the set up of our players and main storylines complete, I feel like we will get into some big things.

It’s Friday (hurrah!) so that means it’s time for our weekly edition of interesting tidbits from the world of British entertainment news.

We’ve got a wide variety of news stories (and a few non-entertainment ones!) covered this week, so click through for goodies fromDownton Abbey, Sherlock, The Only Way is Essex, Luther, Birdsong, Da Vinci’s Demons, Being Human and more, including news from National Television Awards. Enjoy!

BBC America has announced that Season 18 of Top Gear, everyone’s favorite series that is ostensibly about motor vehicles but really is so much more awesome than that, will debut here in the US on Monday, April 16. Yes, Top Gear really has run for that many seasons already, believe it or not. I had no idea. But, at any rate, going by the footage in this way-too-brief clip, it still looks as incredibly entertaining and fun ever. Despite the fact that it's a bit older than I thought!

Let’s be honest: I don’t even like cars and I love Top Gear. I have a feeling that I’m not the only person who feels this way either, given how popular the show’s become worldwide over the past few years. (And just for the record: one of the things I’m going to make sure I do if I ever get crazy famous is try to take the reasonably priced car for a spin. Just so that’s now written down somewhere for the sake of posterity.)

Click through for a look at the brand new BBC Two promo for Season 18, featuring an appearance from Ray Winstone, Richard Hammond at NASCAR, Jeremy Clarkson in a rather dreadful wig, and what appears to be the Stig’s “Italian cousin”.

Those of us who are fans of both of Steven Moffat’s current productions – Doctor Who and Sherlock – all basically harbor a secret dream that one day someone on one of those series is going to make some sort of wink-wink-nudge-nudge reference to the other and then we’ll all basically pass out from an overload of geek joy. (There’s even an entire sort of interesting fandom subset called “Wholock” which basically exists to further crossover ideas and things. Internet, you really never fail to impress me.)

Except it appears that that sort of actually happened? Maybe? Well, we’re not sure. But it might have.

Click through for the full story – and don’t worry, those that are concerned about spoilers, even though I’m about to talk about something that takes place in a Series 2 episode, it reveals nothing of the plot unless you were unaware that The Hound of the Baskervilles involves some creepy outdoor settings.